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Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Nino a Sound Tiger ... at least for now.

Trevor Gillies has cleared waivers; the Isles announced that he has been sent to Bridgeport where he will likely make his Sound Tigers season debut at 11 AM Wednesday against the Connecticut Whale (the Rangers top farm club).

He has company, though. Nino Niederreiter is also heading to Bridgeport. For Nino it's an (up to) two-week conditioning loan. He could play as many as 6 games for Bridgeport between now and November13th.

Nino's conditioning loan actually cost Gillies his spot on the roster. Players on conditioning loans must be on the active 23-man roster so to send Nino down they had to activate him. With the Isles at the 23-man maximum, the way to activate him was to remove Gillies.

Under normal circumstances, given his age, Nino would not be permitted to go to Bridgeport - it would be either the Isles or back to junior with Portland. However, conditioning loans are an exception.

The games that Nino plays for Bridgeport do not count towards the games that he will play in the NHL before the Islanders are forced to decide whether they would return him to Juniors. He can still play in 9 NHL games this season before that decision has to be made.

Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick